Telfer: Will Academy Awards be family friendly?

Sitting with a group of friends Friday morning, I had to admit I knew nothing about the 10 films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar during the awards ceremony tonight.

I didn't even make it to Toy Story 3, the box office bonanza for Disney, which is one of the nominees. Several of the shows sound like they might have been worth watching, but for some reason this year was a box office bust in the Telfer household.

Some insight into what ourMidland.com readers think about the shows was offered in a poll at the website. Their clear chose: The King's Speech with 38 percent of the vote as of late Friday night. In second was True Grit with 17 percent of the vote and third was Black Swan with 13 percent. Toy Story 3 was the only other film with double-digit support (11 percent), which seems pretty good considering it is an animated show. But its chances of winning are slim if the most popular film of 2009 -- Avatar -- couldn't net the Best Picture award.

Besides, when is the last time anything like Toy Story 3 won a Best Picture award? Family friendly movies have a tendency to do very well at the box office, but not in the minds of those handing out the Academy Awards.

Coincidently, the conservative organization Movieguide recently announced the results of its 19th Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry that once again showed family friendly movies made the most money in 2010. In fact, it wasn't even close. The report showed family friendly movies averaged about $65.39 million per movie in America, while those containing what might be considered offensive or immoral content averaged $21.20 million.

Thanks to the success of Toy Story 3, G-rated movies had an average of $120.18 million.

"Most people want to see good conquer evil, truth triumph over falsehood, justice prevail over injustice, and beauty overcome ugliness," Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of Movieguide said. "They also want to take their whole family, including their grandparents, to the movies more often."

The problem is when it comes to peer review, the movies Baehr is promoting tend to get the snub. And that snubbing doesn't encourage people hoping to win Best Picture Oscars to spend their careers making nothing but family-friendly movies.

Then again, this could be the year the Oscars surprise me and pick a film like Toy Story 3 for the top award. But I won't be holding my breath expecting it to happen.